“It’s important to wash your hands before and after you eat, it’s important to wash your hands after you go to the bathroom,” said Mary Suzanne Whitworth, M.D., medical director of Infectious Diseases at Cook Children's. “Remember to do that with soap and water for 20 seconds. If you can’t use water, use hand gel.”

She adds handwashing is critical after you touch surfaces you share with other people.

“Handwashing with soap and water can prevent 1 in 3 people from getting sick with diarrhea and 1 in 5 people from getting a respiratory illness,” chief of the Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vincent Hill, said in an interview with CNN. "That is why handwashing is so important, especially at key times such as after using the bathroom, when preparing food, before eating, and after coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose."

This year's theme of Global Handwashing Day, Hand Hygiene for All, calls for universal hand hygiene to beat the virus today and ensure better health outcomes beyond the pandemic.

"This day is an opportunity to design, test and replicate creative ways to encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical times," the Global Handwashing Partnership noted. "After all, this simple behavior can save lives. For children, handwashing can cut diarrhea by almost one-half and acute respiratory infections by nearly one-quarter."

An easy way to help your children wash their hands properly is to pick a song to sing, like happy birthday, while they scrub.

“Keep yourselves safe. Help us prevent the spread of coronavirus that causes COVID disease and help us prevent the spread of influenza,” said Dr. Whitworth.

Here are the general rules:

1. Washing with soap and water for 20 seconds is the best method. The entire hand should be covered and scrubbed.
2. Alcohol based hand sanitizers are an alternative if they have 60% alcohol-but most are not recommended for use under 1 year.
3. Hands should be washed multiple times throughout the day but especially after having been around others, before and after feeding (bottle or solids), after the bathroom and if they are visible dirty.

Click here to learn more.

Ensure school-age children know when to wash - before eating and after playing on a playground at recess, using the restroom, and coming into contact wiht friends and classmates. Teach kids that it's important not to chew their fingernails or touch their faces.

"Hand-to-mouth transmission is a major way children are infected by viruses," said Vanessa Charette, M.D., a Cook Children's pediatrician in Fort Worth. "Keeping hands out of the mouth is a difficult behavior for certain children to master, but it's important that they do."

Little hands can pick up a lot of germs. At any given time, you have close to 150 different bacteria living on your hands, and 80 percent of illnesses are spread by direct human contact. For kids, stomach bugs, strep throat and other bacterial illnesses can spread quickly, particularly in environments such as schools and day cares.

"I also tell young children to keep their hands below their neck. They don't rub their eyes, such their fingers or pick their nose," said Kim Mangham, M.D. a Cook Children's pediatrician in Keller. "Kids can have all the germs in the world living on their hands, but they don't put their hands in their mouth, nose or eyes, they won't get sick."

Having trouble convincing your children to get with the hand hygiene program? Let them know that fighting the spread of germs can be pretty cool. A recent study published in the American Journal of Infection Control concluded that fist bumping transmits far few bacteria than handshaking.

Along with vaccinations, hand-washing is one of the most effective ways to prevent flu. Alcohol based hand sanitizers are not effective against enterovirus 68, only good, old fashioned hand-washing.

Hand hygiene is especially important while children are attending school, where nearly every interaction carries the possibility of transmitting viruses.

“Children should wash their hands before and after going to the bathroom, as well as before eating or drinking,” Frank McGehee, M.D., a Cook Children's pediatrician in Fort Worth, said. “They should work the soap into a good lather and scrub for at least 20 seconds—the amount of time it takes to hum ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ Have them scrub especially well around fingernails and jewelry.”

It’s also a good idea to have children wash their faces frequently during flu season.

Sometimes it's difficult to make your child take the time to wash his or her hands. How do you get your children to wash their hands? We would love to hear from you.